CNN thought it found the perfect human face to put on MySpace statistics and voter registration numbers it tried to use, in an American Morning segment, to prove that the popularity of Barack Obama had campus conservatives on the run at American colleges. USC's Eric Perlmutter, identified as a member of the College Republicans, was quoted saying "we try to get people out to our college Republican meetings... but we can't seem to get the same amount of support" as Obama. After the president of the USC College Republicans spoke up to say he had never met this guy, CNN issued a fairly damning correction:

Hey, if John McCain, 71, had any hope of becoming the oldest person ever to ascend to the presidency next January, you know what would be important? The identity of the person who would replace the Republican and miracle of modern medical technology upon death. But all news outlets everywhere know McCain cannot possibly win this thing, since voters hate Republican candidates right now and besides Barack Obama is a tender angel of love and hope and also Change. This is why even the rabidly conservative Wall Street Journal editorial page just ran an opinion piece (headline pictured above) arguing that it just doesn't matter who McCain selects as his vice presidential candidate. The writer, senior Ronald Reagan adviser Ken Khachigian, concludes that talking about McCain's VP "is about boredom relief for opinion writers, political junkies and the media. It provides an escape from the fatigue of an 18-month nomination race — a new rabbit to chase" that soon "will be a distant memory." Harsh! [WSJ]

John McCain made a pair of not-bad ads mocking the schoolgirlish moments of pundits talking about Barack Obama. Sure, it was hypocritical since McCain's no stranger to favorable press — he famously joked that reporters constituted his "base." Also politically dangerous for the same reason. But if he gets away with tweaking the Fourth Estate it's because he offers the kind of access other pols don't. This is why Jonathan Chait and Jacob Weisberg may not vote for him but still kind of admire the guy. Obama, however, is the anointed presidential hopeful (if he doesn't say so himself), and he clearly has more to lose if the media's infatuation with him ends. Gabriel Sherman of the New Republic has a good piece explaining how the bloom's already gone off the rose. Obama's press liaison Robert Gibbs is a dick, and his other handlers are prickly and micromanagerial. Key evidence: The Times' Adam Nagourney and Megan Thee wrote a story about how the candidate had failed to bridge the race gap. This precipitated a gentle question to Nagourney from the Obama campaign, which he answered. He then awoke the next morning to find himself attacked in an eight-point press release issued by Obama's team and leaked to Talking Points Memo and Marc Ambinder. "I've never had an experience like this with this campaign or others," Nagourney tells Sherman. "I thought they crossed the line. If you have a problem with a story I write, call me first. I'm a big boy. I can handle it. But they never called. They attacked me like I'm a political opponent." So I guess Nagourney's less of a fan. True, McCain went out of his way to antagonize Elisabeth Bumiller of the Times for probing his red-meat conservative credentials (didn't Kerry offer him the VP slot?). But again, this wasn't schema-altering. Who didn't already know McCain could go from Mogwai to Gremlin when his status as a Maverick was either questioned or affirmed by the wrong inquiring mind? With his wafer-thin lead in the polls (don't email me, Gibbs!), Obama can scarcely afford to keep a reputation like this:

It's healthy to question the adulation of public figures. But as creepy as certain adherents of the Obama cause can be, they're more than matched by archconservatives who see "fascism" in every kitsch rendering of the Illinois senator in his many pieces of campaign paraphernelia. Latest case in point: Dr. Melissa Clouthier, a chiropractor turned blogger for Right Wing News and her own Information Pollination. Featured is a screen capture of an entry now up at her site in which she compares a poster heralding Obama's Berlin appearance to a Hitler propaganda image. See, both men are shown in profile (danger!), and both can now be associated with Berlin's Siegessäule, or Victory Column: the Fuhrer had it moved to its present spot to mark the capital of his envisioned Greater Germany, and under its famed golden statue is where Obama will make his Teutonic debut (scandal!).

So take a look at that first sentence there (the "lede" in douchey old man newspaper talk). Was this story filed from John McCain's imagination? If so, shouldn't there be more blondes? (Also it should be "was due to stay.") Screencapped in case they rewrite it! [Reuters]

Barack Obama's advance staff confused everyone when they told journalists not to wear green during their trip to the Middle East. Obama's staff claimed green is the color of Hamas, which is actually isn't really. Though it is the color of Islam in general. So Obama is distancing himself from all the Muslims in the world, which should help dispel those rumors about him being a fist-bumping terrorist by seeming like he's trying way, way too hard, almost like a man with something to hide. Or maybe some staffer just did a shit job of research and thought that was a helpful and clever suggestion. Journos are also prohibited from wearing nail polish and tank tops and from actually asking the candidate any questions, as Andrea Mitchell bitches about in this attached Hardball clip. Chris Matthews is so thrilled that Barack Obama can shoot a basket (he is also shocked that there are so many black people in the military!), but Mitchell seems to think pretend interviews organized by the military are maybe a bad thing? She's not wearing green, though. Don't you hate how biased everyone is?

The Obama campaign instructed staffers not to wear the color green during the Democratic candidate's trip to the Middle East. "An Obama aide explained to reporters that green is the color associated with the militant Palestinian group Hamas." Apparently, crescent-shaped croissants may be next. [Politico]

Click to viewThe presidency ages a man. (And hypothetically it would a woman, but we'll never know!) Remember when there was color in Bill Clinton's and George W. Bush's hair? Barely? After two terms in the Oval Office, both men looked twenty years older. This despite the fact that Bush gets 12 hours of sleep a night and Clinton received regular tail! But what will happen to Barack Obama or John McCain? Obama does too many drugs to sleep and old people like McCain just doze off in front of the tv each night for a couple unsatisfying hours. So we had intern Anna Peele work a little photoshop wizardry to age Obama and McCain and help us figure out exactly which terrifying visage we'll be forced to look upon in 2012. Scary results below!

So is the media blitz accompanying Barack Obama to Iraq actually evidence of that nasty pro-Obama bias we keep hearing about? Sure, whatever. WHO CARES. The media's been self-flagellating about everything for the past, like, six months, so all the pro-Obama bias is corrected by the Obama hype-debunking and "oh we are being unfair" handwringing that every cable news panel has to engage in. Half the coverage of the Obama trip has been of the "will this dispel the myth that he's a naive fool about foreign policy?" nature. Which is goofy because, hey, John McCain's foreign policy chops are not exactly respected by anyone. But he's old! Of course then Nouri al-Maliki (we actually can't believe ol' Nouri is still alive, good on him) accidentally endorsed Barack Obama's Iraq plan (the 'get the hell out of Iraq' plan). This is "a PR boost" for Obama. We're including this MSNBC clip covering the trip primarily because they break in halfway through to show "new video" of Obama in a room with some Iraqi officials like it is somehow enlightening.

After the New Yorker ran its controversial Barack Obama cover satirically mocking smears against the candidate, the presumptive Democratic nominee acted like it really didn't bother him all that much. "It's a cartoon," he told CNN. That seemed very reasonable! But it sounds like Obama was more angry than he let on. The New Yorker was shut out of much-coveted plane tickets for the senator's trip to the Middle East and Europe next week. Neither Washington correspondent Ryan Lizza nor, Politico's Mike Allen confirms via email, anyone else from the magazine is among the 40 journalists blessed with seats. Granted, some 200 people applied for tickets. But given the New Yorker's circulation, influence and often heroic coverage of not only politics but also the war in Iraq (George Packer), U.S. intelligence and covert military operations (Seymour Hersh, Steve Coll), American torture (Jane Mayer) and the inner workings of the Bush administration, it's hard to see the snub as anything other than payback.

Remember when it was sort of a big deal for people to mix up Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and noted terrorist Osama bin Laden? Late last year, it was major news when CNN confused them in two different segments — the network apologized in print, on air and personally via telephone. When Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney did the same, a Huffington Post blogger wrote, in commentary typical of the moment, that "the fear of terrorism makes the Obama-Osama name mix-up anything but off-color camp." The news media has had seven months to clean up its act, but hardly seems to have learned a thing. The cable news networks tallied three Osama-Obama slip-ups in the past week alone, TVNewser noted, including a third-time offense from MSNBC's Chris Matthews. After the most recent, by Dan Rather on MSNBC Friday morning, none of the four people on camera even bothered to correct the gaffe, even though Rather actually went whole-hog and called Obama "Osama bin Laden." Where's the outrage?

The media attention being paid to Senator Barack Obama's trip to Afghanistan this week has all the usual wing-nuts crying that the press isn't doing enough to cover Republican Presidential candidate George W. John McCain. "'The question really needs to be posed: Is this type of coverage fair?' said Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va. 'This is nothing but a political stunt.'"

Oh hey, beloved humorist Joel Stein wrote a fantastic column for the Los Angeles Times newspaper called "How to Make Fun of Barack Obama." Wait, sorry, that's the wrong link. That link goes to a post we wrote on Wednesday. We meant to link to Joel Stein's hilarious and original column, "How to make fun of Obama." Do you need reassurance that all is right with the world? Here it is: his advice directly contradicts ours, repeatedly. Did you know that Barack Obama is really gay?

Poor Dan Rather. You step away from the news game for a couple of years and all those skills you developed as an anchor over three decades just seem to go to pot. (Look at Tom Brokaw on MSNBC.) Rather turned up on Morning Joe today to talk about the Jesse Jackson controversy, but he didn't just accidentally switch around Obama and Osama's first names like so many other news personalities recently: He mentioned how Jesse Jackson "paved the way for men like Osama Bin Laden." And just seconds after pointing out to Tiki Barber that if you're in the spotlight, your every word will be endlessly dissected by the media. Dissect for yourself after the jump.

Thanks to Wonkette for reminding us that satirical caricatures are so hot right now! A county commissioner running for re-election in Oklahoma sent a comic book to everyone in his district with over-the-top drawings of "pedifiles," "pedaphiles," anal sodomites, the devil and "liberal good ol' boys" all trying to frame him (on felony campaign finance chages). Oh, sure, at first the drawings might look like an old-fashioned nasty smear campaign in cartoon form, rather than sophisticated ironic commentary ala the New Yorker's Barack Obama cover. But this little graphic novella can't help but lampoon itself, what with its portrayal of the full gamut of Christian extremist politicking! Assuming that Times op-ed contributor Timothy Egan was correct about red states having a well-developed sense of satire, Oklahoma City should be certifying gay marriages by Labor Day. More hilarious frames after the jump.

Recently, we explained how to make fun of Barack Obama. We thought that would be the end of it! But no, you people-you animals-have more questions, so many more questions. Questions we're obligated to answer. Don't thank us, we're just doing our job. Below: snappy answers to stupid questions about Barack Obama.

New Yorker editor David Remnick went on the Charlie Rose last night to talk about the whole to-do over the Barack Obama caricature cover. OH GOD JUST LET IT END, right? Remnick kind of feels the same way. But he did take a fun swipe at useless Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz, and also talked about how his magazine is totally in the bag for Obama and will probably endorse him, so maybe everyone should stop hating him, a position that seems likely to cause some sort of problem for the magazine down the line. He also repeatedly lavished praise on Daily Show host (and New Yorker defender) Jon Stewart, who he called "our greatest press critic." Find out what special favor Remnick did for Stewart by clicking on the thumbnail at left for the clip, and also have fun trying to figure out if Remnick truly believes that "this [cover] image may be too complicated to work out for some people" (his words) or that such a notion is elitist, as he also seems to argue.

When Barack Hussein Obama summers in his ancestral home of Iraq in a few weeks, along with some other foreign places, the trip will, of course, turn into an elite party for his showbiz friends, all of whom are clamoring for seats on his campaign plane. Katie Couric of the CBS Evening News is arranging an on-trip interview, as is Brian Williams of NBC Nightly News and Charles Gibson of ABC World News. Meet The Press wants to talk to Obama. "Star political reporters from the major newspapers and magazines" are also coming, the Times reports for Thursday's paper. So, why all the enthusiasm? John McCain's last big tour in the war zone was relegated to the evening news remainders bin. And the network newscasts have already given Obama 114 minutes of coverage since June, to McCain's 48, according to some study. The official reason: This is Obama's first overseas trip since becoming the presumptive Democratic nominee. The real reason? Let's ask some starfucking magazine editors!

The Fox News Channel is now admitting that civil rights leader Jesse Jackson used the word "n—-er" in comments about Barack Obama in front of cameras in Fox News' Chicago bureau. Fox told AP tonight that Jackson said the Democratic presidential candidate was "talking down to black people ... telling n——rs how to behave" (that sentence fragment having first appeared on TVNewser earlier today). A Fox News Channel insider told Gawker nearly a week ago that Jackson had used the n-word, although it's not true, as we were told at the time, that the remarks were directed at Obama. Still, there's no small amount of hypocrisy at work on Jackson's part: He once called for a ban on any use of the slur. Fox's confirmation that Jackson used it himseld comes after Fox spent yesterday issuing carefully-calibrated denials about the incident.

Poor Maureen Dowd doesn't know how to make fun of Barack Obama. It's actually pretty easy! Everyone misses Bill Clinton because he enjoyed extramarital sex with interns and oddly unattractive women, he had a southern accent, and he was kind of chubby. Everyone will miss George W. Bush because he's stupid. Those traits are so, so easy to mock! But the problem is jokes about those traits were and are and always have been terrible. Have another Big Mac, Bubba! Then put a cigar in someone's vagina! Hey George Bush you look like a chimp! And, like a chimp, your grasp of complex concepts like grammar is often lacking! Jesus. Stop already. Obama's a godsend, because he lacks those easy buttons. So everyone has to be more creative with their humor. Allow us to help you!